OUR WORLD WAR -BBC

Awards: WSA, Lovies

Nominated: BAFTA, Broadcast Digital Awards, Prolific North Awards, Banff Media Festival

With the release of Our World War – a visceral, World War One mini-series – the BBC saw an opportunity for innovation. While the first three episodes of the series would embrace traditional storytelling, the fourth episode would be interactive, merging broadcast-quality footage with the visual grammar of gaming and animation. A hybrid of a TV programme and a game experience, this interactive drama puts the audience right at the heart of the action, in other words, “TV they can touch”.

Set in High Wood, a particularly bloody battle of the Somme in 1916, the story follows a young corporal leading a small group of soldiers struggling to survive. Split over three acts, the interactive episode gave control of the corporal’s decisions to the audience, challenging them to make choices that affect the lives of the men, while at the same time making the story both more compelling and involving. These choices not only changed the course of the narrative, but they also carried hidden value as each decision is measured as a series of scores that define how well each viewer performs as a leader.

Producer: Dan Tucker

Screenwriter: Marco Crivellari